Toolkits for accessible participation: The case of pix as a universal co-design tool

Abstract

In the field of co-design, the tools for collaborative ideation are recognized as essential in the early stages of creating products or services for the initial formulation of the solution space directly involving the final recipients. However, many of these tools do not address aspects of cognitive accessibility, which ends up excluding people with intellectual disabilities (ID) from co-design processes. The following article describes the development and use of PiX, a co-design toolkit and method created to support multidisciplinary teams during the first phases of ideation of new technological products. In the study, PiX is used in workshops with multidisciplinary professionals and in parallel in workshops with adults with ID to compare and evaluate the cognitive accessibility of the design tool. The results show that the tool facilitates collective ideation in the early stages of co-design, favoring the development of cohesion, understanding and expression by the teams, allowing people with ID to contribute to the conceptualization of new technologies. Finally, the role of design tools to integrate teams and incorporate people with ID as co-ideators is discussed.